Traveling Alone: AAA estimated that nearly 100,000 million people would be traveling this past holiday season, making it the busiest holiday travel season in six years. As travelers check in and out of hotel room, the risk increases of harboring and transmitting bed bugs. Here are a few quick tips to ensure you don’t travel with any unwanted visitors.
As soon as you enter your hotel room find the nearest hard-top surface. First put your luggage on the table or on the bathroom floor. Bed bugs typically hide in warm, dark places, so this will ensure your luggage is safe while you do your own inspection.
Start with the beds. Pull back the comforter and corners of the fitted sheets. Inspect along the creases of the mattress. Bed bugs are large enough to see with the naked eye. If no live bugs are present, keep an eye out for egg deposits, both hatched and unhatched. When bed bugs molt, the shell of their old exoskeleton will also be left behind. Dark, rust-color red spots can also indicate the presence of bed bugs. Such spots are traces of their feces, and will smudge when wiped.
Next, inspect the seams of the other soft furniture in the room. Examine the sofa. Look underneath the seat pillows and in the seems of the upholstery.
Lastly, and most important, inspect for bed bugs behind the headboards of all the beds in the room. This will be the most likely place to see live specimens. Bed bugs are attracted to our body heat when we sleep. They can also detect the emission of carbon dioxide from our mouths while sleeping. After they have fed for the night, they return to their hiding place until they are in need of food once again.
Pull the headboards away from the walls to get a closer look. If the headboards are fastened to the wall, inspect that the perimeter extra well. Use a flashlight when needed.
As a precaution, when you are out of your hotel room, store your clothes inside your suitcases. Do not leave clothes tossed around the room or on the bed.
Remember, cleanliness of a hotel, house or room has little to do the possibility of bed bugs. They have no favorites or preferences. When given the opportunity, they travel from person to person, hotel to hotel, bed to bed. Regular inspection is the best defense to combat a few early, rather than many later.
Steve Bitter is a Marketing Manager with Bulwark Exterminating, based in Mesa, AZ who loves the idea of Traveling Alone. Bulwark Exterminating is an industry leader in providing high quality pest control service. Bulwark is fully operational in seven states, including eleven major cities. While Bulwark provides pest extermination for common insects such as ants, roaches, crickets and spiders, the company’s differentiating specialty is scorpion control. Bulwark uses the finest and most effective products in the world to solve common pest problems.
